The Delusion Of Being...

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?”- Chuck Palahniuk

Death.

Wikipedia defines it as the termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism (I was at a complete loss to start this post any other way.) Only Wikipedia it can summarize something like death in such neutral and objective terms. For the rest of us it invokes different reactions altogether. On losing someone of importance, every person grieves somewhat differently, and there is seldom any clear-cut order or pattern. As per the Kübler-Ross model, there are five stages of grief. Although they seem reasonably accurate, categorizing and quantifying a huge variable and subjective phenomenon like grief can be dicey. One individual might move quickly from one emotion to the next, while another might show only one intense emotion for a long period of time.

However, for me personally, death has always been a distant and strangely numbing phenomenon. I don’t mean to portray myself as an-unmoved-totally-unaffected-by-any-damn-thing kinda guy, but ever since I can remember I haven’t felt the same as those around me. I attribute it to losing my grandfather, who like every grandpa in the world, doted on me, at a very early age. That is probably why I got desensitized and more accepting of the fact that we all got to exit the stage someday and it’s probably not creating the fuss we normally do over it. This maxim served me well for the past fifteen years. But a recent event shattered most of these notions I’d created for myself.

A close friend lost his dad recently. Without going into the details, it was obviously a great shock, to say the least. Death, in itself, is not that big a jolt, as opposed to its untimely nature, which causes most of the grief. As I witnessed the rituals that followed and the subsequent reactions of those involved in it (including myself), I couldn’t help wonder id this was the best way to bid a final goodbye to those we cherish so much. In a typical Hindu family, there’s an elaborate procedure after someone passes away. From preparing the body at home before covering it and carrying it to the nearest temple, and then the whole scheme of things at the cremation grounds. I guess most of it is pretty routine or so I thought. In one barbaric and unseemly final ritual, while the body is burning on the pyre, the son has to crack the skull of the corpse. Now I have no idea if this signifies the setting free of the soul or what, but it sure seems unnecessary and heartbreaking for the kid to say the least. Another thing which bugged me was the constant scheme of all the pundits who treated the whole affair as another opportunity to mint quick money at the expense of the bereaved without even an iota of empathy for the loss. Its things like these which strengthen my belief in the redundancy and mindlessness of the modern religions. They’ve lost all credibility as far as I am concerned. Another aspect which I found disturbing and irritating was our ability to trivialize even the most sombre of things. I mean the way people gossip, cook up medical conspiracy theories at such a tragic time is shocking. If not for another thing, at least in the memory of deceased people should refrain from such talk. But then we Indians have never been known to shy away from the small talk now, have we? (Mental Note: Sign up as an organ donor and for an electric cremation.)

The whole experience made me reflect on the whole notion of death and our preparedness (so to say), of the same. I firmly believe that, inevitable as it is, one cannot let the fear of the end hold oneself back. I remember reading something by Chuck Palahniuk which went like that on a reasonably large time line, the survival rate for everyone is zero. We can never be fully ready for it, so there’s no point losing sleep over it. On the other hand, it also made me realize the transient nature of our existence. All  it takes is one rash decision, one momentary lapse of reason to end our fragile lives. And in an increasingly frayed, tense world it’s not only our indiscretions which may lead to it. Some years ago, another one of my friend’s dad was crushed by a speeding car (expectedly driven by drunk douchebags) while he was on his routine morning walk. What can you POSSIBLY do to prevent or anticipate such an event? Surely all the sense in world is outweighed by the idiocy of all the blithering jerks out there. So are we entirely helpless? I guess there is no easy answer.

I suppose one thing we could do is be more spontaneous in our decision making. Most of the time we waste in over thinking and over analyzing things. A friend of mine lucidly calls it, “paralysis due to analysis”. Very apt! You surely don’t want life to whizz past your eyes without doing all that you dreamt of. For me personally there are so many things I feel like doing. An oft repeated phrase of mine is that one life is too short for all the good books you want to read in the world. Same goes true for all the brilliant cinema you want to watch, the dazzling array of diverse places and adventure that await us, the different cultures, cuisines, music we want to savour. There’s never enough to shower affection and show our appreciation for the people we love and cherish. Sometimes thinking gets in the way of all that. There are already so many parameters we impose on ourselves (friends, family, money, society etc.) One surely doesn’t want to add the crippling fear of death to be one of them? The Greek philosopher and founder of the novel school of philosophy, Epicurus got it spot on when he said,

“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”

R.I.P.

“I fear one day I'll meet God, he'll sneeze and I won't know what to say.”- Ronnie Shakes

So after much hullabaloo and constant delay, the judgment on the six decades old Ayodhya title suite is out. And seemingly it seems balanced and logical. A three way division (2:1 to Hindus), to be enforced after 3 months. All in all a balanced and sensible verdict which certainly did cause none of the brouhaha the government thought it would. But this not what the post is about. That is for all the “learned” and “informed” panelists who are busy TV studio hopping from one channel to another, dissecting the verdict and giving each other congratulatory jhappies.Personally (and I’m sure it finds resonance amongst my peers), I couldn’t care less with what happens with the disputed area. Heck, erect a KFC there for all I care! And understandably enough, the same opinion is shared by most Indians which obviously also includes the eponymous “common man”, everyone’s favourite fall guy.

All this made me reflect on the bigger issue. How religion provokes and ignites such vehement and inflammatory opinions. Isn’t it supposed to unite and preach tolerance? But id you look at all the strife in the world, you’ll realize how foolhardy that notion is- whether it’s Islamic xenophobia, or the imperialist ways of right wing Hindu groups seeped in an Aryan mindset. And I haven’t even mentioned the race tensions in Spain, Israel, China etc.

To understand how we have arrived at what seems like a paradox, one must evaluate the basis and evolution organized religion. The first organized religions appear to have been based on fertility. They were focused on the worship of the great Earth Goddess. Religion evolved to include male Gods who were gradually given increased importance by the priests. Along with this different factors like the size of the human brain, increasing use of tools and increased prevalence of group living- also contributed to it. Expansion of the neocortex, which is involved in processing higher order cognitive functions that are necessary for human religiosity. According to Dunbar's theory, the relative neocortex size of any species correlates with the level of social complexity of the particular species. For example, in chimpanzees the neocortex occupies 50% of the brain, whereas in modern humans it occupies 80% of the brain. That may explain why humans have a more pronounced religious system than apes!

This may be the historical bedrock on which different faiths were founded but when you look at the present state of almost major modern-day religions, you’ll notice that they are largely a response to human fear. Their main function is to provide their followers with a feeling of security while living in a dangerous and volatile environment in which a person can be injured, killed or murdered at any time due to natural causes, accidents or human hatred and intolerance. This is the basic flaw. If something is founded on the exploitation of insecurity it is bound to breed insecurity. And people living in such an atmosphere or fear and virulence can’t get along. This cuts across all religions, whether it is the Maulvis who talk of the constant threat from Western powers or the equally terrifying prospect of Saffron extremism. We have ample evidence historically, which proves that such kind of hate-mongering, once mass bred, can lead to horrifying and catastrophic consequences (The Holocaust anyone?). Once man evolved to a slightly higher level of understanding, it created a concept of faith, an inner and personal belief in a supreme being or creator. Since this time, this has been hijacked by people looking to control the masses and represent a ‘greater power' to their own effect, this is where modern religions were born.

Contrary to what it may seem till now, I am not against religion. To the point that it provides someone with a sense of inner calm and belief, it’s fine, but the moment these vested interests turn it into a forceful and vicious propaganda, it loses all meaning. The scariest thing to me is the blind zealots which continue to use religion as a means of power and control. It’s then that you realize that religion is a man made concept created to fill the void of the unknown. As a species we are generally quite weak and very fearful of the unknown. Over the millennia, mankind has passed these theories and stories down from generation to generation, and the truth has become blurred and no longer truly recognizable.Where we are now is at a contradiction to the basic ethos on which these belief systems were founded. It was meant for a sense of spiritual upliftment, certainly not for furthering of malicious ideals. In today's debate, religion blurs everything, dividing our population like nothing else on earth. It is guilty of mass murder, slavery and hypocrisy and continues to drive a wedge between continents and societies.

A couple of weeks ago while travelling in the Delhi Metro I came across this old Sikh lady who was having incredible difficulty in standing. She was very frail and kept hobbling as if being weighed down something in contrast to her wiry frame. Then she proceeded to extract a heavy knife which she was carrying under her clothes. This was the Kirpan, a dagger carried by Sikh followers and a part of their five Ks. At once she felt at ease and was able to stand comfortably. This probably sums up the conundrum. You know something becomes a liability when it holds you down and becomes a handicap.

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”

Priest: "No, not if you did not know.”

Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?”

:D

“The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone, the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood.”

-George Bernard Shaw

“Who do you want to be like when you grow up?”

I am sure this is a question we all have faced sometime or the other during childhood, adolescence and maybe even later! This is especially true for culture that is so soaked in customs, traditions and cherished institutions of thought like India. We treasure our community ties with an ardent fervour and are always looking to align our thought process with a proven and established set of ideas, to avoid failure and gain some sort of abstract validation.

I’ve always struggled with this question from time immemorial, and till date have not been able to come up with even a remotely satisfying answer. But then the voice (among the many) in my head asks, “Is an answer necessary?”

I mean its okay to admire people, ideas, institutions etc and all but then is it necessary to idolize them? Why is there this need to deity-fy everything and everyone? Whether its a sport team or an actor, an artist or an author, a company or a public institution? Is anything so beyond the realm of admiration and respect that it has to be a higher platform for us to truly appreciate its unique-ness? I can only speak for myself and I feel that its a just fail-safe mechanism we have ingrained in our systems to feel some sort of pseudo-security and feel validated for any rudimentary spark of original thought we may have. I for one have always looked up to several people (prominent as well as people you meet day to day), institutions, schools of thoughts etc but have (and probably will never) be able to single it down to one human being (no matter how acclaimed) or one single idea (no matter how widely accepted and recommended). It’s an amalgamation of a plural ideas. I guess that’s just a choice we make and there is really no ONE right way to look at this (as it is with almost every argument of this nature.)

What I feel is that we tend to take comfort in PROVEN ideas, people and institutions because we are afraid put our necks out and risk hitting the curb. We take shelter in other’s views because we are too scared to go out on a limb and try a novel approach just because it has not been tried by anyone before. We tend to underestimate the power and reach of Individual Action and overestimate the effectiveness of traditional methods and ideas. I don’t agree for most things Obama stands for but I agree with him when says,

"In America we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."

Blind idol (idle) worship risks more because we lose out on precious new inputs we could’ve otherwise generated. This is all in the grey and as I said earlier there can be no ONE singular answer. My apprehensions about the whole system of Idols/ Heroes/ Paragons, is more to do the fact they are seeped in the past rather than the present. I don’t understand why people fear new ideas. Personally I’m more afraid of old ones. I guess it makes me a hypocrite because in the end I also favour one school of thought over the other. But then, aren’t we all?

P.S. I’ve changed the look of the blog, among other things. Regular (if any!) and even occasional readers are most welcome to provide feedback!

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
-Jorge Luis Borges

A head start for everyone here: I LOVE books. Always have and always will. In fact there’s ever been a constant passion and hobby I’ve cultivated in my life, it is reading (among other things).

From childhood, when the likes of Hardy Boys, Secret Seven, Archies, Tin tin ruled the roost to teenage when I moved on to the more “mature” works of Sidney Sheldon, Arthur Hailey etc and then to Ayn Rand, I’ve pretty much been through the whole drill. As I grew older and read more eclectic stuff and as my tastes developed, I’ve probably started more diverse books but one things that has remained unchanged is the eternal charm of reading. Books were and have been the easiest form of escaping into your own utopia. Whenever I read anything I was transported into my world, made out of my choice of colors, my thoughts, my feelings, my views. In it my whims and wants were of the highest priority and life was stabilized at an all time happy mode.
As life’s almost endless, the treasure of books is also abundant in this world of ours. Influence is the keyword that is synonymous with millions of words put down in writing by writers world wide. Where Enid Blyton influenced my young world, John Grisham helped me in fostering my aim to be a lawyer, Shakespeare’s writing introduced me to an ancient world in an ancient tone that I could somehow closely relate to while Ayn Rand helped me realize and actualize my own way of life and thought.

All this while the world of writing and publishing books has undergone a sea change. There has a been an emergence of many new and interesting trends while at the same time it has signaled the end of many others (whether for the good or bad is an issue for another post.) What got me thinking in this direction was an event I attended recently, It was group discussion with two of the finalists of this year’s Commonwealth Prize (Marié Heese, Rana Dasgupta), Shormishtha Panja (Professor with the University of Delhi and President, Shakespeare Society of India) and Jai Arjun Singh (author of the popular blog, Jabberwock). The topic for the discussion was “Globalization- Writing And The Right To Be Read”. Although the discussion rarely conformed to the aforementioned topic (as it normally happens at such “intellectual events”), it did manage to bring out a few interesting topics pertaining to the modern writer and the new media for accessing writing worldwide.

Over the few years, of the many emerging trends that have come up, the most prominent one is of the Global Indian Author (however oxymoronic that may sound). The phrase in question refers the increasing number of foreign educated Indians’ writing gaining prominence and acclaim. Suketu Mehta (Maximum City), Vikram Chandra (Love & Longing…, Sacred Games), Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Rana Dasgupta and the garnd daddy of them all V.S. Naipaul among many more. These authors have an “hyphenated identity” eg Dasgupta is a Bitish-Indian. What this does it creates a unique space in the writer’s mind and gives their views a unique edge. The topics they write on may seem alien if viewed with respect to their cultural origins but are valid nonetheless as it corresponds. On the other hand we have a relatively home grown set of writers like Chetan Bhagat et all who write primarily about the experiences of the “Indian Middle Class” and around that. The main problem with the domestic writers like Bhagat is that they often raise the jingoistic and archaic pitch that anyone with even a shred of Indian DNA should confine himself to the Indian Middle Class and its experience. What they don’t see is that the global Indian author, as a direct consequence of his global upbringing is naturally equipped to write about that. This trend is not limited to just India but the sub-continent notably expatriate Pakistanis like Mohsin Hamid, Mohammad Hanif. What these people have in common with the India lot is a shared sense of existential angst as a result of the tough conditions young people face in South Asia. This also seeps into their work which gives it a unique flavor which is essentially a part of their shared experiences. That is one of the most wonderful aspect about writing, you can shed any tags you might have and let thoughts and opinions flow.

Another burning issue at the moment is about the emergence of the “new media” (Web Logs or Blogs, ebooks, Twitter, Facebook) and their impact on the way we read. A popular perception is that the age of Twitter and text messaging is dummying down our population, and destroying the written word. Many believe that this may be the last era of fine literature. And whereas, that maybe true, it is also good to see that the average citizen is getting at least some practice writing, even if it is only in their electronic journal or blog, which may (or may not) lead to a spillover onto writing. We must remember that it’s never been as easy as today to get published (and how!). We also see that there is a gap between the quality of writing, for instance those that learned how to write by posting on their blog, and those that have learned how to write from journalism college courses. Online writing has gotten completely interesting in that the articles you read, and the content that is available runs from atrocious to the superb quality you'd find in a literary writing contest. What these new forms of media have done is bring about what I like to call a “democratization of reading”, wherein the no one is left out of the “reading elite” rather is a part of the whole creative process.

Another observable trend is obsessing over how much money a first time author receives as an advance when it's brought up in the news. Yeah, Lindsay Lohan will no doubt be offered like 100 grand for her memoirs, a tiny percentage of which will go to the ghost writer who fills in everything between "got first role as trick or treater dressed as garbage" on a Letterman show, and "signed book contract." If there’s something which almost everyone agrees on is that fame helps a whole lot in landing book deals. It’s an undeniable fact. You have to be market-able to some extent. No one extends out freebies anywhere. PR is an essential part of any literary quest. It’s an unwritten rule. We may condemn it in intellectual circles but you can’t run away from it.

A fashionable tendency nowadays seems to be distancing yourself from your niche by describing your chick-lit novel as "a first person, contemporary journey through this hectic world where searching for real love shows a single mid-30s blonde the meaning of friendship and loyalty – but it's not chick-lit". It's chick-lit. Deal with it already. There’s nothing worse than reading some far fetched pompous gibberish summary on the cover which has nothing to do with the story! Describing your post-apocalyptic zombie novel as "a journey between a father an son" Cormac McCarthy, I'm looking at you. And guess what, zombies trump father/son bonding when it comes to book jacket marketing. Misleading is a shameful and damaging activity in the long run.

On the other hand an unfortunate trend is where one sees in writing profession is the use of artificial intelligence software that produces content. Interestingly enough, these AI software systems are getting better, and soon they will be able to produce creative works, or novels. How the future pans is out is only something we speculate and not predict.

No one in India has pinpointed the next homegrown prize-winning writer, but the recent trend seems to confirm, rather than undermine, the place of novelists writing in India now. They appear confident that there are new things to say, that people are interested when they say them, and that they can produce books as good as writers living in the west. In fact, they are beginning to write back to the west: perhaps the next big book to come out of India will have nothing to do with the country. Pankaj Mishra's new book is about China and Rana Dasgupta's second novel, written from Delhi, is set in Bulgaria.

"I have a lot of pressure from my publishers to write about India," Dasgupta admits, but "it is a colonial hangover in publishing to think that writers in India, Africa and the Caribbean must write about their home cultures while writers from the West could write about anywhere. Mature literary cultures should feel like they can write about the world." Whatever be the result of this tussle, one thing that is certain is the fact the times for an avid reader have never been more exciting and diverse.

Happy Reading!

There are days and then there are days. Some days go on exactly like the ones that preceding them, exhibiting almost no character of their own, a mere carbon copy, a blank lifeless shadow. While there are some days where unexpected events happen one after the other and snowball into something bigger than the sum of the parts, effecting a profound or maybe not so profound change in your sense of perception. Today falls into the latter category (as can probably be seen with this long overdue update!) :P

Things have always been far from ideal in this great country of ours. I guess even that’s an understatement. The electricity is erratic, the water supply inefficient and insufficient, poor telecom services across the board, corrupt and lazy bureaucracy, an inept police force, lax and rarely administered laws, and a political class which roughly commands the same respect as the criminals, or probably even less. And these are just the essential requisites I talk about. But in spite of the grim picture, we’ve strived. Grappled with the almost insurmountable problems and managed to make a semblance of a name and place for ourselves. We work hard, hope harder and pray the hardest . Whatever the methods maybe, we seem to make it despite the overwhelming odds. A strong reason and driver for this-seemingly-a-success story is our innate and almost unnatural ability to “ADJUST” no matter what. No space in the train compartment? That’s hardly a problem, we can always adjust thoda sa. No surprise the trains with a maximum capacity of 2000 carry five times that much in Bombay. Water coming only twice a day in a trickle? Ah, that’s easy to get by with. We’ll store bucketfuls at the crack of dawn. Rapid and incessant load shedding during summers? Arre, that shouldn’t be a problem. The retort is that Newton/ Einstein (basically any famous scientist you can think) bhi toh streetlights ke niche padhe hai! Basically, as the new rage of the season, 3 Idiots professes (and we idiotically accept), All is Well or in our context it should be All is fucking stupendous in spite of any goddamn shit because that’s just life here! After all it’s not Amreeka now, is it? And this adjustment doesn’t end with the physical space but percolates to every life-decision. From career choices, the car you select, the person you choose etc etc. This is the reason people are stuck in dead beat jobs with no future forced to act like corporate drones, love-less relationships continuing just for the sake of society. After all, log kya kahenge is more important than personal happiness and satisfaction, right?

The abovementioned rant is nothing new. Neither is it a path breaking insight into our incredibly-dysfunctional-and-divided-yet-striving-and–lecturing–the-world-about-harmony-and-co-existence society.

Today, like many other automobile enthusiasts I headed out to visit the Auto Expo ‘10. Accounting for the humongous crowds and congested locales, I intelligently (or so I thought!) decided to use the Delhi Metro. The ride from CP to Pragati Maidan (the venue) led me to wonder if this is what a crudely performed colonoscopy in full public view feels like? And believe me that’s not an exaggeration. I don’t want to complain about it further. Did that already sometime before! That was not all. Upon reaching there because I was not one of the pass-waalas I had to buy a ticket costing 200 bucks, the sale of which, surprisingly had been closed down 15 minutes ago at 3 o’ clock! Yes, 3 p.m. A full 4 hours before the scheduled closure of the exhibition. And the douche bags who designed the official website didn’t find it necessary to put it up there. How very convenient you say? Hell yeah! And since it was one of THOSE days, upon trudging back to the metro station, I find an hour long line to get back into the station! And since all other public transport is not more useful than dog poop, only after walking a couple of kilometers to the next metro station could I get back my life on track (pun intended), where of course another colonoscopy awaited me, but then that should be the least of my worries, right?

What I want to ask is that is there a limit to this all? I mean c’mon, surely there must come a point when this can’t go on? The limits of our tolerance of inefficiency and chaos in society?

No one cares, no one bothers, no one gives a shit. We’re all happy in our cocoon like existence. Fighting the good and honorable fight, fending for ourselves, getting on with the day, proceeding to perform the same clockwork like routine. We all watch with zombie-like stares and life goes from bad to worse to unimaginable. We’ve been numbed by enormous amounts of apathy to point of where nothing ever shocks us anymore. We’ve all seen this before, heard it before, been there but did nothing even then. Nothing ever changes and neither do we. We watch with glee as our impotent and ball-less political class gets shamed in every filthy scam there can be, deriving some sort of a sadistic and maniacal pleasure in the age of 24 hour news channels which sensationalize to no end and whose veracity can’t be trusted in this age when even most of the news is bought out by the very perpetrators who they claim to expose. Kudos to Mr. N.D. Tiwari for his vigour though! :P

Prices of essential commodities keep shooting through the roof but the government stares on like an impuissant fuck refusing to do anything, irrespective of who rules. The only things that change with the party in power are the pictures on the walls of government offices and our textbooks. I could go on and on about this but then you get the drift. Basically when you think things can’t get any worse, they do and the worst part is that we’ve all made our peace with it, cut our deals and carry on livin’

We, Indians are very proud of our close knit community like structure, often ridiculing the west for their concept of nuclear families and individualism. But as Samar Halarnkar, HT’s Editor-In-Chief, pointed out recently, “Isn’t it funny how the west treasures individualism yet works wonderfully as a community, and we in the third world, treasure our community ties but settle for an every-man-for-himself approach in our public spaces and actions? ” That is exactly one of the primary roots of our malaise.

People say anger is bad for you, I say if it helps you channelize your thoughts and energies into something introspective and life-affirming, what’s the harm?

The great French mathematician/ philosopher/ poet, Paul Valéry once said aptly, “Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.” India’s and our problem is that we have most of the latter and too little of the former…

P.S. To those who may think that I’ve just stated the problem(s) and not offered a solution, I say, Well if I’d done that it wouldn’t remain a rant, now would it? :P